Jrogdorr Reviews

Hard Plastic (2020)

Worse than a Triple Bogey...

[2 August 2022]

If you're here you are one of two things: a disc golfer, or an Andy Dick fan, so I'm going to assume with about 99% certainty that you're a disc golfer.

There is nothing here, neither comedy or entertaining disc golf. It's shorter than 18 holes of disc golf but feels longer than searching for your disc in mosquito infested tall grass on a 90 degree humid day.

Just go find a disc golf course and play a round, there are no birdies to be had watching this.

Buying the Cow (2002)

This movie is like "pure truth".

[12 May 2006]

This film just blows my mind. It is a great little movie, it really is, but more so it blows my mind because of how undeniably true to life some parts and dialog really are. David's voice-overs are so touching, and genuine to real human emotion, I just cannot believe it. Much of the reason I am in love with this movie now is because I am in love with a girl, and she is in love with me, but we have obstacles, much like the characters in this film. Indiretly, but underneath, this film has a GREAT message about love and finding it, and not just finding love, but making it work. David says in this movie, "there is no one true love, but just a LOT of potential true loves"... and until I watched this film(for the first time in about a year), I never ever agreed with that, I've always been old fashioned, and thought that there is a one true love for everyone, but it just isn't true, and watching this movie made me realize that, and I know the girl I am in love with right now isn't "THE ONE", but she is a potential "THE ONE", and I do think she will be my "THE ONE", especially after I watch this movie with her.

This movie really has a great message, and will make a GREAT, absolutely AWESOME date movie for any two young lovers, it gives you all the knowledge and feelings that you are going to feel when you falling love, and it tells you what to do with them. Trust me, I know, I have recently fallen head over heels in love with a young lady and I know watching this film has just given me all I need to make us work. This movie is amazingly made for the things it was made for, it was made to be romantic, which it truly, deeply, sincerely is, and it was made to be funny, which it also REALLY is, it's zany and over the top, but who cares? It's the message that is there under all the silliness.

Ryan Reynolds... can act... wow... Jerry o'Connell has never been better, everyone else is great. Walt Becker(director) has really made an amazing film, especially for someone who is currently dating, or talking about dating... think of this film as a guide to true love, and lots of laughs.

This is one of my new favorite films... it really will just make you feel good. It is a must see for anyone, especially for couples. Awesome date movie, and I'm gonna use it on a date, and it's gonna find me true love, and it'll find you true love too. If you think I'm exaggerating, I'm not, this is an amazing movie, don't pay any attention to the IMDb.com user rating, it's under-analyzed, and under-understood.

Buy it, watch it(with a date preferably), enjoy it. 10/10

Titanic (1997)

A True Cinematic Masterpiece

[29 April 2006]

I saw this film for the first time the day it came out on video. At the time I would have been 9, but until watching it again for the first time in at least 2 years last night, I realized I never truly cared or understood how truly beautiful this film was, and is. It is both amazing and sad how you can forget how truly great a movie is if you don't watch it for a period of time. I have always loved the movie, but until last night, when out of absolutely nowhere I decided to watch it, did I love this film for the right reasons. Aside from the awesome sinking ship and amazing visual effects stuff that kids 9-13 years will enjoy, there is so much else than anyone, of any age can and will enjoy.

The acting is amazing, especially that of Kate Winslet, who was in my opinion robbed of the Oscar for Best Actress. The cinematography is absolutely breathtaking, and the music score by James Horner may very well be the most beautiful thing ever made by a man. Absolutely undeniably perfect. It is easily the best score for any motion picture ever. Just thinking about it makes me tear up. All in all, this movie deserved the 11 Academy Awards it took home, and I could go on and on, but I need not, because unless you have been living under a rock for the past 9 years you have already seen this movie, and every positive thing I could say about it has already been said. That being said, I will tell you one thing more: this movie made me cry, numerous times throughout, and not many films do that to me, VERY few in fact. So any film that can do that is great in my book. I know this movie takes a lot of heat now, but it's very unnecessary, and it does not deserve the heat it takes, and I simply do not understand why anyone could not love this movie. Titanic registers a 7.0 rating on IMDb.com... 7.0! That is very sad. Come on. This movie deserves at least an 8.1 rating and a spot in the top 250. I cannot stress enough how beautiful this film is.

You can say what you want about this film, I say it's one of the greatest and most powerful films ever made, and historically, whether or not you like the movie, it IS going to go down as the most successful, and one of, if not THE most important movie in existence.

This is now and forever one of my 10 favorite films. 10/10

Get Shorty (1995)

The Best Movie About Movies... Ever!!

[30 March 2006]

As the title of this review clearly states, this movie rocks!

Every actor is absolutely brilliant! Easily Travolta's best movie, and even easier his best character. Dennis Farina... Jeeze... just thinking about Ray Barbone cracks me up... it's probably my favorite comedic performance ever. Gene Hackman is hilarious as the idiot Hollywood director... Delroy Lindo is great as the villain, and as much as you want to hate him, you gotta love his character. Rene Russo is great as the washed up B-movie actress who can't get a break, Jacob Vargas is undeniably hilarious... Danny DeVito's character is completely annoying, which is the entire point of his character, he pulls it off wonderfully. James Gandolfini is involved in on of the funniest part's in the film, "that's not bad for a guy his size". David Paymer is great as Leo... it's a small part, but as hilarious as anything you're likely to see. Speaking of hilarious, this film features an amazingly funny performance from Jon Gries, who is, in my opinion the best supporting, and most underrated actor in the world. This film is full of solid comedic performances, and just overall awesome acting.

For as great a movie as this is, it really puzzles me as to why it was nominated for no Oscars... it should have gotten a Best Picture nomination, a best adapted screenplay nomination as well as a Best Actor for Travolta, and a Best Supporting Actor for Dennis Farina... and the IMDb rating doesn't make sense either... 6.9? In my opinion, it very well deserves a spot in the Top 250... yes, it is this good people! So if you haven't guessed by now, I can't sing high enough praises for this film. If you haven't seen it, GO AND BUY IT NOW! If you like movies, which I assume you do, you will L-O-V-E this film! Avoid the sequel "Be Cool"(see my review) at all costs!!! But do yourself a favor and check "Get Shorty" out... now!

10/10 - ****/****

Be Cool (2005)

Everything "Get Shorty" was NOT.

[28 March 2006]

This may very well be the worst film I've ever seen. Or, at least I hate this film more than any I've ever seen.

In 1995, a film called "Get Shorty" was given to us, it had great acting(cause it had ACTORS), it was well written, had GREAT characters, it was well directed, it was funny. Cut to 2005, the sequel to this hilarious film about the movie business come's out... only this film is about the music business... sort of... it doesn't have good acting(cause it doesn't have any real actors), the characters sucked(even returning ones) it is poorly written, horrendously shot and edited, and racially biased. Not to mention not funny for a solitary second. I may have chuckled once or twice, but that was toward the beginning, before I truly knew how deep in crap I really was.

John Travolta won a Golden Globe for playing Chili palmer in Get Shorty, and in my opinion should have been nominated for an Oscar... but in Be Cool... we get John Travolta... reading lines from a script written by someone who obviously didn't care. WHERE WAS CHILI PALMER? Among other problems with this movie, which is pretty much the entire thing... one thing REALLY angered me: The "black influence on America is a good thing" was being shoved down our throats from the get-go. I'm no racist, but this is really getting out of hand. Movies with rappers and rap poser's have simply got to stop. It isn't cool. There's actually a scene where Cedric The Entertainer(get a new name you hack) goes into a big monologue about how the white community should thank the black community for it's influence on us. Ummm... not if you're influencing movies like this we shouldn't be.

I could go into detail about everything about this movie... EVERY actor(and I mean EVERY one) sucked. John Travolta, Uma Thurman, and Harvey Keitel... sucked... Cedric the Entertainer is the worst excuse for an actor alive, Vince Vaughn was embarrassing, "Twinkle, twinkle baby!"... Jeeze... The Rock has a LOT to learn, let's see who else? Ahh who cares, they aren't worth a mention. Ooopps, my bad, Robert Pastorelli was good, unfortunately he didn't have more than 8 minutes of screen time... Let's see what else is there? Cinematography was uninteresting and lazy, editing was terrible, music was probably the worst part and the guy who directed this should never be allowed behind a camera again. My bad, the writing is THE worst part... what was this guy thinking when writing this? "Let's just re-amp Get Shorty for today... with rappers and other groups of people who are talentless and have no business having a movie made about them." And it's just plain lazy... this movie stole so many lines and scenes and situations from Get Shorty... too many, even for a sequel... too many even if it was the character from the original doing it... and it was.

I'd give this film a ZERO out of 10 if I could, but I can't... The worst sequel I've ever seen(I gave Get Shorty a 10), and one of the 5 worst films I've ever seen. This "film" is such a waste of time. DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE if you were a fan of Get Shorty.

1/10

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Best Zombie Movie Ever!

[26 November 2005]

First Watched: November 26, 2004; 1:30 p.m. ...that's 12 months, or 52 weeks, or 366 days, or 8,784 hours, or 527,040 minutes, or 31,622,400 seconds since I first saw this little zombie flick, and to this day remains my favorite horror film ever.

After missing it in the theater's(which I GREATLY regret), I rented this on DirecTv PPV, and after being glued to the screen for 101 minutes, I turned to my two brothers and said word for word, "That was the single best movie we've ever rented on PPV.", and it was. It was at the top of my X-Mas list, and sure enough I got it, but it just wasn't good enough, then came the director's cut which I of course own and consider my most important DVD. I just finished watching it today as it is the one year anniversary of the first time I saw it, and if I had to guess, I'd say it was probably the 20-25th time I've seen it, and I'm just getting' started. If you haven't guessed by now, I am completely and totally in love with this movie... but enough about me, let's talk a bit about the movie.

***Warning: Possible Spoiler's Ahead!!!***

-First and foremost, the cast and characters are dead-on perfect. I could go through and name every character and actor, but I'd just be saying how perfect they all are for their roles, they are all extremely convincing as people in a very hard situation. Even Mekhi Pheifer give's a believable performance, though he could have made shooting a gun look a little more believable... CJ is my favorite movie character of any movie I've seen(Michael Kelly rules!). His character while not the most featured in the film has the best development and the best demise in the film, which if you've seen the movie, you know how damn cool it is, even though it was sad to see him die... Ving Rhames is awesome as usual, but as I said before, EVERY actor was excellent in their roles.

-The look of the movie is great, very dark, eerie, and creepy. The cinematography is superb, it just looks so real you feel you are in the movie itself; the color and lighting in the mall really gives off a sickly feeling of dread and entrapment, which is exactly as it should be.

-The director of this movie, Zack Snyder, is a god to me. Every time I watch Dawn of the Dead, I feel he made it especially for me. As I said before, he and his Director of Photography, Matthew F. Leonetti made this movie look and feel so real, combine that with Niven Howie's excellent editing you get a film that is as visually appealing as ANYTHING I have ever seen put to film. The way this movie looks just cannot be beat, it is how every horror movie SHOULD look in my opinion, because it set's a mood that is just so special for a horror movie. I especially love his opening, just great how he has everything go from a "perfect world", to complete chaos... possibly the best opening to a horror movie I've ever seen.

-The music, is, without a doubt some of the best horror movie music I've ever heard, I'll leave it at that, cause I'm really just speechless on it, it's that good. As far as non-original music goes, Zack Snyder is a genius, using Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" in the opening credits just works so perfectly, combined with the awesome images for the credit's sequence, I could just watch it over and over and over(and I have). The soundtrack simply rules!

-Of course, I gotta mention the zombies. "WOW", is all I can say, if you don't like this for any other reason, nobody can deny that this film has the best zombie effects since... ever. Every one is just a beauty for horror fan's. As far as running zombie's go, I'll just say that I loved it, I found them to be more threatening, and a hell of a lot more scary, but, you'll either love it or you'll hate it. If you're a die hard fan of Romero, you may not like it, if you're ready for a new generation of horror/zombie movies, like me, you'll love it.

-Finally, if you like violence, blood, gore, action, this IS the movie for you, there is so much blood and zombie head-shot's in this movie, you'd think you'd get sick of it, but trust me, you wont.

***End of Spoilers!***

Well, that's about all I'm really gonna say, you really have to watch this movie to decide for yourself how poetic it really is, and that it's not just a mindless gore-fest, it is a gore-fest, but it has a mind, and a heart...

I want you to go out and get this movie, get the director's cut, if you're a horror fan, you're gonna love this, you have to, it's what we've been waiting for, a brutal, gory, bloody, funny, fast, and overall fun movie, that is most importantly of all NOT a B-Movie. Personally, I think this movie deserves a spot on the IMDb's Top 250. They say you can't have everything, but for me, this movie has just that, EVERYTHING I wanted to see.

I would just like to thank and congratulate EVERYONE involved. I would especially like to thank and congratulate Zack Snyder, what a great debut feature... you are truly my favorite director, and I will pay money to see anything you do. (please make Dawn of the Dead 2!!)

Lastly I want to say that if the young and upcoming filmmaker's of today(myself being one) take note(I will) on how this movie turned out, and help to make movies like this the future of horror movies, then the future look's bright, and very bloody. 10/10

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Wow... Where do I start?

[20 March 2005]

Well... Spider-Man 2... I'll start off by saying that this is a very fun film, but it is taken WAY too seriously... WAAAAY too seriously. Obviously this movie is on the top 250 here on IMDb, but it doesn't deserve to be. This movie is full of so many inconsistencies, and impossible action sequences, it's not even funny... For example, the runaway train sequence... while very fun and action packed scene, is absolutely impossible, even for Spider-Man. Sorry, you won't fool me into believing that he can hold back, or even try to hold back a speeding train with his arms, and I had my head buried in my hands when he tried to stop it with his feet, and was ripping up rail-road ties, and he simply jumps up and acts like he did nothing more than stub his toe. Spider-Man 2 is full of this... like, I found it interesting how Doc Oc's mechanical arms grew about 15 feet from when he first put them on to when he is in the hospital... I also liked how Spider-Man is able to hold up a 2 ton brick wall, not only hold it up, but catch it in midair... every action sequence was seriously over done to the limit... and Peter Parker must have been practicing his webbing tactics between part 1 and 2, because this movie doesn't hold back on that... how about when he gets his suit back, and leaves a note? (if you've seen the movie, you will know what I mean)... This movie is ridiculously unrealistic.

Now, onto the good, this is a very good romantic comedy, though I will say that for some reason, Peter Parker is about 10 times the loser he was in the first one. But, everything is acted very well, and the movie kept me interested. I do think that Sam Raimi is given much too much credit for these movies, seriously, he doesn't give us anything that couldn't be done better, and I honestly think that his directing in this movie was very weak, I won't explain them cause, I really can't, something in the movie just felt missing to me... But it doesn't change the fact that this was a very good way to spend... however long it was... cause at the end, which was a pretty good one I might add, I really, really wanted to see another one. This movie is about as good as a comic book adaptation goes, with the exception of X-Men, in my honest opinion, but, it shouldn't be taken so seriously, because it is not a masterpiece, it is not one of the best movies of all time, but despite all it's wrongs, it's all-right. 6/10

P.S. I'm not a huge fan of Bruce Campbell, but his cameo was hella-funny!

House of the Dead (2003)

Very Interesting...

[21 February 2005]

Well now... Finally saw it today, and I had my hopes up to come on here and slam the f**k out of it... but... I don't think I have the heart to... Was this a good movie? No. Was it the worst piece of film I have ever seen? No. Was it OK? Yes. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Yes I did, as a horror movie did I enjoy it? Kinda. It has zombies, and tons of gore and excessive violence, and of course some enjoyable nudity... all things that make my kind of movie.

Uwe Boll take's a hard bash off the fans and critics, but in reality, this movie isn't near as bad as people say it is, the dialog is just OK, but the characters you just want to see die, especially the Simon character. Ona Grauer's Alicia character is the only one you really feel for at all because she is so damn hot, not to mention, she's not really all that stupid. She's one of the best parts of the movie, if not my favorite part. The zombies are, OK, but nothing special like in Dawn of the Dead '04, but still looked OK... But it is clear to me that Uwe Boll is a good director who accepts not so great scripts... but, he could have cut out all the clips from the game, that was just irritating, and yes, Uwe, there is such a thing as too much action, especially in a horror movie, but without all the killing of the zombies, this movie would have been a total loss.

Now, in closing, as a horror movie, this probably deserves to be in the bottom 100, and as an adaptation from a great game like House of the Dead, it for damn sure deserves to be in the bottom 100 but in reality, this is a pretty good B-movie to spend 90 minutes of your life on. Hell, I'll be honest with you, I cant get enough of this damn show! I am highly anticipating the sequel, cause I really found it entertaining and fun. Pick it up if you can get it from $5 or so. With this movie you can do two things, 1. be a cynical critic and slam this movie forever, or 2. enjoy this movie for the funny, gory film that it is. To each their own, I'm sure nobody will agree with me, but I give it 6/10.

The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting (2003 Video)

Okay Sequel, Excellent B-Movie.

[12 September 2004]

I know that people hate this movie because it is a sequel to the Hitcher... I like this movie as a sequel and I'll tell you why. It leaves a lot of space open for a sequel if you have imagination. Think about it, in the next sequel, perhaps we can find out who Jack really was. Maybe he is the original Hitchers son, maybe John Ryders family has been stalking Jim for the past 17 years... just waiting patiently for him to return to that desolate stretch of highway... You'll notice that the killer in the original had a full name, John Ryder, but the killer in Hitcher 2 was called only Jack... a sequel to this movie could be highly excellent if executed properly.

Back on track though... honestly, this is one of my favorite horror movies... the atmosphere and cinematography in this movie are, in my opinion perfect. The acting, especially C. Thomas Howell's and Jake Busey's are superb... Kari Wuhrer, though one of the hottest women in the industry, and a damn fine actress, just didn't get the best role, sure she ended up being the hero, but... she was an idiot. Her hair should have been bleached blonde for this role... that would have given her justice for being so shallow minded... how many times did she have the opportunity to kill Jack? How many times must she ask Jack "Why are you doing this"? Maggie, SHUT UP already, he want's to kill you, who cares why, just run!!! Another flaw in this movie was killing Jim... ummm... huh? Writers, if C. Thomas Howell is willing to return to a straight to video sequel to one of the most suspenseful thrillers ever, keep him around! Not a good move, no, a daring one, yes, a good one no... But aside from all the wrongs of this movie, the killer is great, most of the kills, and there are A lot of them are quite entertaining... though not near as suspenseful or thrilling as the original, Hitcher 2 is more entertaining in my opinion. If you can look past what this movie is looked on as(a bad sequel), you can see it as what it is meant to be(an entertaining B-horror movie flick). Cause that is what it is subtracting the title. I like to refer to this movie as it's surname, "I've Been Waiting", because as I said, it is a great movie if you can see it as not a sequel, if you can do that, it's a great way to spend $7 at Wal-Mart and 90 minutes of your time.

9/10 for solid entertainment.